Drummy embarks on new journey

Dermot Drummy departed for his first trip as the club’s international head coach yesterday (Thursday) as he headed to the USA for his first assignment with the Chelsea Foundation.

Drummy, who led our youngsters to the Under-21 Premier League title with wins over Manchester City and Manchester United in the play-offs, began a new role within the club’s international coaching department in July.

After a few weeks getting to grips with the far-reaching work of the Foundation’s international department Drummy will now spend five days in the USA primarily educating domestic coaches as part of the club’s continued work with our Super Clubs network in America.

More than 90 coaches will benefit from Drummy’s wealth of experience during his stay, while additional Foundation coaches will also be in attendance to share the ethos and training techniques employed by the club.

The trip is an extension of our Here to Play, Here to Stay initiative which is dedicated to building education and soccer training platforms for children around the world.

‘It’s an exciting development for me as until I started I didn’t know how global the Foundation was and how much work goes in to it,’ said Drummy, who joined Chelsea seven years ago initially as Under-16s coach, before moving on to coach our youth team and subsequently the Under-21s.

‘It is an exciting challenge to be coaching within the Foundation, but also to educate myself about how Chelsea works on the bigger scale and while I am going in gently and learning as I go I want to expand my knowledge and have a positive impact.

‘This is an important trip as the coaches we help are the messengers as we need them to impart our thinking and our messages to the kids in the right way for the long term.

‘As a club our Academy and our way of thinking is working and the Foundation has the same philosophy and it is important we impart that on others and help them reach the levels they want to reach.

‘As a club our philosophy is to play creative football and to pass the ball and the Foundation coaches and myself want to pass that on to others as it is an important message to pass on and one I feel we are in a strong position to share.

‘I want to bring a level of expertise from a coaching point of view and I think you can always share that with others and improve as a group.’

During the visit Drummy will be working with male and female coaches and players at all levels of our USA partner clubs.

It is not just in the USA where Drummy will visit in his new role with trips to Thailand and the R&F Chelsea FC Soccer School in China planned for the coming months, while closer to home the new international head coach plans to spend some time with our Ladies team among other things.

‘There are trips to China and Thailand planned but also things closer to home at Cobham with the Ladies for example,’ added Drummy.

‘The global side of things is great but as a person I like to talk football and share knowledge and opinions and I want to do that with as many people as I can.

‘My role is a new position and I think I think if I’m not abroad I will be helping where I can. The women’s game is flourishing in this country and at Chelsea and if I can share my experience with the likes of Emma Hayes then I will.

‘I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve learnt about the Foundation so far. There is so much going on and hopefully I can help grow things. It’s already massive and I knew plenty about it but until you are in the midst of it you don’t really know the ins and outs and the aim is to help grow things.